Down The Pike

The graders have been pushing dirt on Boynton Beach Boulevard for two months now, clearing land for the county`s first new Florida`s Turnpike interchange in 33 years.

The five-year battle to win the interchange united homeowners, business interests and developers -- groups that usually don`t agree on much of anything. But all wanted the added convenience of quick access to a major north-south route.

``We`ve been behind this all the way,`` said Phil Leslie, president of COBWRA, the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations. ``We need all the highway lanes we can get.``

And, amazingly, almost none of the local strife that usually accompanies south county road projects hindered the interchange`s approval. In fact, when Florida Department of Transportation funding problems threatened to shelve it last year, citizens and developers joined to get it pushed ahead.

``We`ve met with no resistance from anyone,`` said Marty Trauger, who heads the Boynton Beach Task Force, which for six years has sought wider roads in the area.

Now the dream is coming true. Builders expect to finish the interchange and its companion project, the widening of Boynton Beach Boulevard between the turnpike and Military Trail, by 1993. That`s when growth will start in a flurry. The thousands of acres of nearby farmland may not stay empty for long.

The land will increase from four to 10 times in value as soon as the road is built, said Florida Atlantic University urban planning professor Lance deHaven-Smith. He predicts few landowners will be able to resist the lure of quick cash.

The groups that united to get the interchange built already conflict in their visions of what new growth ought to look like. The homeowners want pretty, landscaped residential communities with a minimum of commercial development.

``We want to keep commercial under tight control,`` said Richard Carrington, former president of COBWRA. ``There`s no point in building more vacant stores.``

But Gary Ashcraft, executive vice president of the Greater Boynton Beach Chamber of Commerce, sees the open agricultural land as a great place for business. He envisions a large business park there once the new Quantum Corporate Park fills up.

``There`s extreme interest in that area,`` Ashcraft said. ``We need to have some definite plans.``

One of his models is in Boca Raton; especially the stretch of Glades Road between Town Center Mall and the turnpike, where office buildings benignly overlook fancy housing developments.

``I`m hoping (developers) will be looking at that kind of development,`` Ashcraft said. ``I`d like to see a pleasant mix.``

But deHaven-Smith fears the worst. He sees Boynton Beach Boulevard someday lined with strip shopping centers west of the turnpike just as it is east of Military, given the County Commission`s historical helplessness at fending off commercial development.

``The problem with the unincorporated area generally is, there is no master plan,`` deHaven-Smith said. ``You tend to see...a helter-skelter, scattershot kind of approach.``

He thinks west Boynton will develop something like this: High-quality office plazas and hotels will sprout on the four corners of the new interchange. One or two big, top-notch housing developments -- like Mission Bay or Boca West -- will follow, along with a sprinkling of quality shopping centers.

But as pressure to develop continues, commissioners` justification for excluding new malls weakens. Soon smaller, less attractive malls creep in among the better projects -- what deHaven-Smith calls ``the Trojan Horse effect.``

``The cumulative effect is pretty ugly,`` he said.

Land developer Don Stiller sees things moving much more slowly. The builder of the Lakes of Boynton community between Military Trail and the turnpike, Stiller worked in the area for more than a decade. He thinks the major development push west of the turnpike won`t happen until the next century.

``That`s many, many years away,`` Stiller said. ``It`ll take a long time to get out that far.``

He said developers won`t build shopping centers until there are enough people to support them. Right now, hardly anyone lives west of the turnpike because the 20,000 acres between Clint Moore and Hypoluxo roads have been set aside as agricultural reserve. Commissioners are waiting for a consultant`s report, due next June, before deciding how much development to permit there.

DeHaven-Smith said he doubts the county can fend off pressure from influential landowners in the reserve area to allow at least limited development. But he hopes commissioners at least localize development at certain intersections.

``They should cordon off the nodes instead of letting the peanut-butter sprawl spread from south county up to Boynton Beach,`` he said.

BOYNTON BEACH INTERCHANGE

Information about the new turnpike interchange at Boynton Beach Boulevard:

-- COST: $16.6 million.

-- START/FINISH DATES: Fall 1990, spring 1992.

-- EXPECTED VOLUME: 14,650 vehicles per day in 1992; 19,980 vehicles per day in 2000.

-- RELATED CONSTRUCTION: Boynton Beach Boulevard will be widened from two to four lanes between Military Trail to one-half mile west of the turnpike.

-- DELAYS: For the next four months, traffic flow on Florida`s Turnpike will be reduced by one lane in each direction from time to time between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. On Boynton Beach Boulevard, no lanes will be closed, but the speed limit is reduced to 40 mph.